Shots that make you go "Goddamn!"

I know these aren't older movies but two that immediately jump out in my mind are in Contact and To Live and Die in L.A.

In Contact it was when Foster's character as a kid comes running upstairs in a flashback and heads straight to the camera with it tracking her the whole time. When she finally comes up into the full frames she reaches out and then you realize it was in a mirror of a medicine cabinet. I have n idea how they did it and even though I could find out if I did some research I like the magic of it. Say what you want about the movie but that shot took my breath away the first time I saw it and it still does today.

The second one from TLADILA was during the famous car chase. It was already intense enough but there was one shot when they went under a bridge and made a hard left at full speed. The camera was in the car with them and panned during the high speeds so you see Peterson at first then the road as it whips around and you have a car's-eye-view. I know Peterson did a lot of driving in those scenes but this proved it.

BIO-ZOMBIE (1998)
Director: Wilson Yip Wai-Shun

The relatively early-in-the-film scene which is not initially what it appears to be, where Woody Invincible (Jordan Chan) and Crazy B (Sam Lee) are being interrogated by the police.

I won't get into the exact nature of the shot, as it would be a disservice to people who haven't seen the film, but it's a real tribute to what you can do with no budget whatsoever when you're creative in how you use your locations. It's a total throwaway gag, but it's a glorious one - I believe I actually said "goddamn" out loud in the theater in response to the shot. The film's not that old, but aside from it being in color, this shot could have been just as easily been accomplished with silent-era cinema technology. It's pure cinematic cleverness in an under-appreciated forerunner of the current zombie revival.

I like Yip's current big budget fare (SPL, IP MAN, DRAGON TIGER GATE) just fine, but it's more impressive to me how much production value he was able to get into a zombie comedy that was obviously made for pocket change.

RodofWar, I could not agree more about that shot in Contact. I actually saw it for the first time recently and was blown away by it. I also have no clue how Rob pulled off that shot. For a more trashy suggestion, I'd go with the absolutely epic one-shot tracking shot at the beginning of Snake Eyes, which is a technical marvel. Also, in the Red Shoes, when Vicky Page (during the surrealist ballet scene) passes through a narrow pathway in slow-motion as pieces of paper and dancers fall as she passes.

That shot from Contact also made me do a double-take back in the day. If you want to hold onto the mystery of it, don't look up how it was done. The actual technique isn't nearly as cool. It was covered in the special features for the DVD.

I know its so soon, but the Inception spinning hallway scene was jaw dropping.

"Russian Ark" still boggles my mind everytime i remember it....those who have seen it know why.

Children of Men is, like, 2 hours of this thread.

There's a shot during the final car chase in Robocop where a hubcap flies off a car at something like 100 mph and just whizzes past the camera, seemingly inches from some startled cameraman. In the days before CGI, I wonder how they perfectly timed that one.

The entire four minute single-shot opening of Touch Of Evil is so fucking good it actually gives me goosebumps.

ETA: (the restored version of the film, that is)

There's a really cool tracking shot in Kill Bill: Vol. 1 in the House of Blue Leaves when the Bride is running up the stair-railing, jumps off and slices a guy while the camera swings around in one shot.

I just think it's really neat looking

I may be wrong, but I'm thinking that was one of those great little unintentional bits.

The exact shot I came in to mention.

Christopher Doyle's filmography is filled with such shots.

The shot of Tony Leung, sitting at his desk, smoke swirling upwards in In The Mood for Love is one of my favourite things ever.

Tuttle hops a zipline down into the Byzantine cityscape in Brazil. It's models and mattes, but it's done so fucking well.

The opening shot in The Dark Knight in an IMAX theater is a pure demonstration of the power of cinema on a big screen. Probably the last time I let loose an actual "goddamn" at a shot.

I've always been mesmerized by this sequence in M, starting about 1:48 in.

USED CARS: The shot when Gerrit Graham is freaking out because he just learned his car is actually red, backing up down the desert road as a speeding car is coming up right behind him and swerves out of the way at the very last second, mere inches away from turning Graham into burger. Shot with a fairly wide lens, no edits, no visual effects. Seriously, death was imminent. Gotta love the coked-up '80s. Even Zemeckis and Russell laugh in horror about this shot during the DVD commentary.

'Mad Max' - the motorcycle gang member getting hit square in the head with the motorcycle. How that guy didn't get his neck broken is a mystery.

'Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior' - the bad guy dong the end-over-end flip through the air towards the camera.

'Ronin' - Both of the car chase scenes have moments that make me go GODDAMN every single time.

When I saw the thread pop up all I could think of is the football stadium scene in The Secret in Their Eyes. I actually said "goddamn!" about halfway through.

There's a shot in either Ghidorah or Monster Zero where Godzilla is raging in the foreground, Mothra is bashing stuff up in the middle, and Rodan is in the distance flapping his wings. I still don't know if they used guys in suits a different distances or one guy in a suit and two smaller models, but my eight-year-old mind was blown away seeing all three monsters in one shot like that.

I remember watching the trailer for 'Independence Day'. The entire theater fucking LOST IT when we all saw the White House blow up for the first time.

For some reason, I love the shot of Rasputin merging with the darkness in "Hellboy".
While on Del Toro, the opening of "El laberinto del fauno" is fantastic as hell.

The tracking shot during the hospital gunfight in Hard Boiled is just mind boggingly good.

The tracking shot in Pulp Fiction that follows Bruce Willis to his apartment and through a chain-link fence. It doesn't really call that much attention to itself, but I'm still not even sure how they did it.

The last two shots of Manhattan, the cut from Woody's grin to the skyline. And every shot from the opening sequence.

The shot in Synecdoche, New York, where he's walking through the factory and directing various scenes from his own life.

The shot in the opening of 8 1/2 where he's trapped in the car as it fills up with smoke.

The shot in After Hours with the keys dropping out the window.

The shot with the arm of the killer reaching out for Olivia Hussey's hair in Black Christmas.

The zero gravity jogging in 2001.

The shot of the explorers winding up the mountain in Aguire.

The shot of Carl and Russell against the sunset, the house tethered to their backs.

Vertigo's last shot. And a really casual one of Jimmy Stewart on the couch in Midge's apartment. It's very simple but it sticks with me for some reason.

The ghostly last shot in The Passenger.

I could do this all day...

The shot that comes from the woods and chases Ash through the entire cabin in Evil Dead II.

M is a film filled with these moments. Seriously, if you haven't seen it, you're missing one of the best and most influential films ever made. Its amazing.

Its a simple thing, but I love the long shot over Shawshank when the new fish - including Andy - are arriving. Its as much about Newman's score as it is the large-scale choreography and the simple addition of the sound effect of the flag wafting in the wind as we fly past. Its pure grandeur that gives you a real sense of the size and population of the place.

I'll second that opening shot of The Dark Knight too. So simple, and again the simple strains of the score help, but IMAX makes that shot - its enormous and menacing and as full of the character of the film and its location as anything else in the run time.

THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM: The shot of Bourne jumping from a rooftop through a window, and the camera DOES THE FUCKING JUMP WITH HIM. I almost came out of my seat when that played in the theatre.

Also, the shot of Henry Fonda searching the aftermath of a gunfight in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST. Also also, every shot of Claudia Cardinale in that movie, but for different reasons.

Fixed. And agreed.

Kingdom of Heaven: This shot:



God bless the director's cut, dammit.

Also, the shot of Izzy standing under a beam of light in the museum in "The Fountain"; hell, probably ALL of the Fountain.

The Fountain:
-Astronaut Tom approaches Xibalba as it begins to implode.
-The upside down horse, car, and especially space bubble shots
-The space bubble rises through the cloud and into the light
-Tomas approaches the Queen in her sanctuary, little candles hang from the unseen ceiling
-Camera tricks you into thinking a painting of a Mayan ruin is really a shot from a set, the camera pulls back and it's Tommy the Doctor's house

And so on.

ETA: There are TONS from Kingdom of Heaven: DC but I can list this shit all day and decided to just focus on The Fountain.

It's lost a lot of its luster, but back when I first saw it, there was that super-wide shot in The Last Samurai where it was just a field PACKED with soldiers and samurai fighting. My jaw hung for a bit. It was a really short shot.

In the beginning of Master & Commander as Russell Crowe is looking through the spyglass into the foggy horizon when the cannonfire from the Acheron illuminates the fog and proceeds to rip the Surprise to shreads.

Not quite the same type of "Goddamn", but I'll add Salma Hayek's entrance in From Dusk Til Dawn.

Thanks for reminding me of an amazing "goddamn" shot from Tsui Hark's 2000 film TIME & TIDE, where a guy jumps out an apartment tower window, followed by a hand-held camera and its operator (around 2:08 into the review).

Pants shat:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lfn0QVwZE-A

That whole sequence is such a triumph of everything from cinematography, special effects, sound design, acting and direction.

I'm a sucker for altitude shots of planes. Some of my favourites: the A-500 gliding towards then peeling away from the camera amongst the clouds in Miami Vice; the F-14 hitting the afterburners causing the spiral exhaust pattern in Top Gun; and not from a movie, but my personal favourite bit of plane meets camera...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvDDDKnNhuE

Also, it's not at all flashy, and no doubt you guys could school me on a hundred equally great examples, but the shot in The Godfather when the camera slowly zooms in on Pacino as he sits and describes how to take out McCluskey and Sollozzo just works so well as a visual metaphor for the way Michael becomes the centre of the film's focus, even though I know it's happening now.

The first time you see the house in the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre is so goddam creepy. Hooper keeps the camera low and slowly reveals the house as Pam (I think?) walks towards it. Shudder.

Also for sheer, "Holy Shit! Look at that!"

The creek in Tarkovsky's Stalker.

'Point Break':
- The foot chase
- The main skydiving sequence, especially when the camera is pointed down and the guys are in a ring, moving away from you towards the ground.

'Strange Days':
- The opening POV sequence, especially the end where you 'fall to your death'.

The Fountain posts up above got some great ones, but my favorite from that film is an homage to Kurosawa's Ikiru. I actually had no idea at the time, but I caught the latter a couple years later and had a holy shit moment.

That long silent tracking shot of Tommy after he leaves the hospital, raging and barely holding it together just plays so perfectly in parallel with the scene from Ikiru. In that movie the same shot plays out much more slowly and languidly, with the main character resigned and depressed over his fate. Same origins, completely different take. It's amazing how that sudden blast of sound and back to the reality at the end fucking brings it together both times. Great moments.

Not that Kurosawa needs any pumping, but Ikiru's a great little movie that doesn't get mentioned as often as the usual suspects. Worth taking time out for.

Now you've gone and brought up Kurosawa, the old Lord sitting - terrified, broken and quite mad - as flaming arrows land all around him in Ran was one of the most breathtaking things my 13 year old self had ever seen at that point in my life.

For Kurusawa to have invented many staples of action film-making in the 50s was brilliant. To upstage nearly every large-scale battle film made since then in the 80s was and is mind-blowing.

Not to damper anyone's enthusiasm but I think some folks (certainly not all) are straying from the original mission statement of this thread: SHOTS that make you go "Goddamn!" Not SCENES or SEQUENCES, etc.

Hell, there are countless more scenes and sequences that could be added here but finding single self-contained SHOTS that blow you away could be a bit more challenging.

One more to add:

The hospital hallway in THE EXORCIST III.

Bad Boys II, during the car chase when "that motherfucker" flips.

Too many too count in There Will Be Blood but there is something about the silohuete shot of Plainview and his "brother" sitting on the beach that always gets me. Then Plainview gets up leaving his brother in the shadows. Simply but effective shot.

The parking garage chase scene from Death Sentence is probably my favorite part of the movie.

Don't shoot me if I'm still missing the point, but the several present-past and past-present transitions in Lone Star left a deep impression with their fluidity and narrative efficiency. I'm no technician, so they seemed pretty impressive on that level too.

The cut from bone to space station is still highly effective in 2001, whilst from an aesthetic "goddamn" standpoint, I'm also a sucker for the shots of Miami at night from Miami Vice. It sounds dumb no doubt, but I'd never seen streetlit skies put on film so vividly - particularly the shots with the lightning storm in the background.

Apologies if I'm still not getting it...

Grace Kelly's introduction in Rear Window. I'm not sure any actress in cinema history has ever had a more flattering shot.

Also: the "single-shot" Football stadium sequence from The Secret in Their Eyes.

In 'Blood Simple' there's a tracking shot in a bar where the camera climbs over this drunk, it's so smoothly done it's incredible.

In Raising Arizona, the Coens have the camera speeding towards this house, the camera climbs over a car, climbs up a ladder and into the window of the house and into the mouth of a screaming mother, that whole sequence is amazing.

I like to imagine that in the scene in Animal House when a bottle of Jack Daniel's is tossed to John Belushi, and he chugs almost the entire bottle, that it was real. Every time I watch that I go goooooddaaaaaaaaamn.